Take the Pieces and Build Them Skywards - part 1

[quarterturn]

headings and warnings/master post

Gerard blinks awake with the absolute certainty that he's late. Of course he's late, why wouldn't he be late, it's not like the week from hell is going to let up just because it's Friday, right?

He jams the heels of his hands into his eyes and scrubs, trying to wipe away the blurriness enough to read the numbers on his alarm clock. 8:05. Yep, definitely late. He scrambles out of bed and grabs the nearest pair of pants he sees, disregarding the fact that they're nearest because they're in the dirty pile. It's just the dirty pile, though, not the Seriously Dirty pile, so he figures he'll be okay.

He's almost out the door when Mikey yells, "Hey, can you give me a ride into work?"

Mikey works at a little record shop about halfway between their house and the train station, and technically Gerard's headed that direction anyway, but he's already hopping out the door, trying to get his shoe on, and irritated at the world, so he yells, "Don't have time!"

Mikey comes out of the kitchen, a piece of toast hanging limply from his hand, and looks at him dolefully. "But then I'll have to take the bus."

Gerard finally slams his shoe on and stands up straight, so not in the mood for this today. "You wouldn't have to take the bus if you'd get your own car."

Mikey frowns. "I might be able to afford my own car if you didn't borrow half my paycheck off me every week."

Gerard looks at his watch, more to avoid the look on Mikey's face than anything, and curses. "Are we seriously gonna get into this again right now? I'm already late-"

"For a job you don't even like!"

Gerard tries not to let it hit him as hard as it could, tries to let it roll off his back, but Mikey's been suggesting he quit Cartoon Network and find a different job for so long that Gerard snaps, "At least I'm out there doing something and not wasting away behind the counter of a record shop no one will ever visit because I'm too scared to try anything else."

Mikey's face falls, and for one clear, perfect moment, Gerard feels absolutely contrite. The job can go fuck itself; his paycheck can go fuck itself, he needs to stay here and make sure things are okay with his brother.

"I like what I do," Mikey says quietly. "Maybe you'd notice that if you weren't hung over all the time." And the moment is gone.

Gerard slams the door on his way out, peels out of the driveway, and tries not to focus on how absolutely right Mikey is.

--

The train station parking lot is already packed, and Gerard spends fifteen minutes circling, looking for a spot, squeezing the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles go white. Finally a space opens up and he slides in, ignoring the irritated horn of a car behind him, and just sits there for a minute. He could call Mikey, make sure he got to work okay, make sure things are okay between them. He's already got his phone out of his pocket before he realizes there's a good chance they'll just rehash the argument over the phone, and jesus, but Gerard just wants to get through today, go home, and drink himself into oblivion.

He sighs, squeezing the steering wheel again and muttering, "Fuck." Mikey's totally right, of course, which is the best part of the argument. Gerard hates his job, he hates his life, he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, but working at a soulless nine-to-five isn't helping him figure it out any faster. Mikey's been suggesting freelance graphics work, or even starting up his own comic, and for as much as Gerard knows Mikey's intentions are good, he can't help but take the suggestions as a testament that he's just not quite the big brother Mikey had hoped for. And if he's honest with himself, he's not. Not even close. After Elena died... The thought of her being gone still makes Gerard's heart clench so hard he can barely breathe, and that's just the first in a long list of evidence that he's not even begun to properly deal with her death. Lately, his big brother duties have taken a back burner to avoiding his problems and drinking himself into a steady decline. He doesn’t blame Mikey for being disappointed; Gerard’s not exactly thrilled with himself, either.

Gerard makes himself get out of the car, makes himself lock it up, makes himself start toward the train station. There's an elderly woman crossing his path, and spontaneously, he puts on his brightest smile and helps her a little closer to her car. He’s been a pretty shitty person lately, on top of being a shitty brother. Helping the elderly isn’t a huge step toward changing that, but it’s something.

The woman thanks him and touches his arm briefly, and there’s a tiny shock, like transferred static electricity. It’s nothing unusual, but the woman smiles at him knowingly, a little sad, and he wonders if the fact that his life is so pathetic is outwardly visible. He’s suddenly hit with the desire to do things differently. To do things better. He ignores the fact that he has this kind of epiphany every few months, usually brought on by a spat with Mikey or a particularly oh-god-I-wanna-die kind of hangover. This time it’s gonna be different. He has to go in today, finish up what he's working on, but dammit. No more. After today he's going to start coming up with something better. He's going to talk to Mikey and really listen when he talks, and he's going to stop being such a disappointment to both of them.

It makes him feel a little better, to think like that, even if he's not a hundred percent convinced he can do it, but Elena would have believed he could do it, and Mikey-

Something's honking right in his ear, and then there's a bright burst of light, and then there’s nothing.

--

He wakes up on the ground, blinking up into the early-morning sun, and thinks, fuck. If he wasn't late before, he really is now, and somehow he doesn't think his bosses are going to take...whatever happened as an excuse.

He pushes himself up, groaning instinctively even though he realizes that nothing hurts. He rubs at his head a little and looks around, frowning at the group of people huddled around the front of a bus. That's kind of inconsiderate, really, that they're all over there and no one's over here making sure he's okay. He is, obviously, but still. Rude.

Maybe someone got really hurt, though. Maybe someone died. He edges a little closer to the group and peers over some shoulders, trying not to look too conspicuously gawky. There's a pair of legs sticking out that Gerard can see, one shoe missing from the feet, and that's kinda funny that the guy down there would have the same stripy purple socks that Gerard has.

His heart bottoms out in his stomach, and for a second he thinks he's going to be sick all over the backs of these people he's hovering over. This can't really be happening, can it? That isn't really him down there lying half under a bus, it can't be him if he's up here looking down at...himself. Can it?

The group divides up a little, and Gerard gets a good look at the body. At his body. His arm is twisted funny behind his back, and his face has blood streaking it from forehead to chin. In a very detached way, he thinks it looks pretty cool, all that blood and his pale skin, kind of artistically tragic, except that that really is him down there, not breathing, eyes wide and blank and staring at the sky. Well, shit.

Now that he knows what's going on, or kind of knows what's going on, or knows that he's dead, he realizes that no one's looking at him, no one’s reacting to him. The him that's still standing, anyway. The him that's lying on the ground is getting some pretty strong reactions.

"Hey, um," he says, and he has to clear his throat because it comes out warbly. "Hey." The guy right in front of him stares straight through him like he's not even there, and that freaks him out more than being dead. What if he's stuck this way forever? What if he's doomed to walk the earth, a tragic, lonely spirit? Aren't there supposed to be lights or something? A tunnel? Friendly faces?

There's the quiet snick of a lighter next to him. "Sorry about that."

Gerard's head whips around so fast he might have broken his neck if he wasn't already dead. The guy's staring at Gerard's body - his dead body, not his actual body like checking him out or anything - smoking slowly, so Gerard looks around to see if he might be addressing someone else. Everyone else on the scene is either crowded around the bus or off in little groups, talking, so unless this guy is talking to himself… He doesn’t look like the kind of guy that would talk to himself, though. Gerard knows crazy - he is the kind of guy that looks like he would talk to himself. But this guy looks pretty normal - short, extensively tattooed, and wearing a t-shirt with a band logo that Gerard vaguely recognizes as something Mikey listens to.

"Uh?" Gerard says.

The guy uses the fingers he's holding his cigarette with to indicate Gerard's corpse. "Sorry about you dying."

Gerard takes a second to clear his throat and shift around. "Um, thanks?" The guy nods but doesn't say anything else, and after a minute, Gerard gets antsy. "So, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm a ghost right now, aren't I?"

The guy nods again and finally looks up at him. "That you are."

Gerard frowns, looking around at the crowd again. None of them seem to notice him. "So are you like a psychic or something? Because of the..." He waves his hand around a little bit, trying to convey the whole "you can see me" thing.

The guy shakes his head. "No. I'm a reaper. And now so are you. Come on, you've got work to do." And with that enlightening bombshell, the guy starts walking away. Gerard doesn't really have any choice but to follow. Well, he could stick around and follow his body, he supposes, but he knows where dead bodies go. He's a pretty morbid guy sometimes, but he doesn't really have any desire to go to the morgue and watch them drain out his blood and bodily fluids, especially since he's going to be naked. He knows since he's dead it shouldn't really matter, but just the thought of someone seeing him completely naked is mortifying, and he doesn't really want to be around for that.

Gerard catches up to the guy. "So, uh. A reaper? Like a grim reaper?"

The guy says, "You know any other kinds of reapers?"

Gerard takes a second to think about it. "Huh. Okay. So, what now?"

The guy takes a sharp turn and heads into a waffle house. "Now we eat."

Gerard's not completely clear on what being a ghost entails, but he's pretty sure it doesn't include eating. But he follows the guy in anyway, sits across from him in the high-backed - seriously, it’s taller than Gerard - circular booth, and waits.

"What can I get you, hon?" The waitress is older, probably around Gerard's mom's age, and a sudden, stifling wave of grief makes Gerard suck in a breath. His mom's going to be crushed. And Mikey, jesus. The earlier argument flashes through his head, and he's suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. He hadn't really been mad at Mikey, and he definitely didn't mean what he'd said about the record shop, and more than anything right now he wishes he'd just fucking taken the five minutes to drive Mikey to work.

"-for you?" Gerard's focus snaps back into the present when he realizes there's an awkward tension hanging over the table. The waitress is talking to him.

"Uh," he says. He's been saying that a lot lately. "Coffee?" She marks it down and leaves, and Gerard's confusion is almost enough to overwhelm the guilt. "Is this like. Is this a ghost waffle house?"

The guy snorts and opens a bag, spilling a mountain of paperwork out over the table. "No, Gerard, this is not a ghost waffle house."

"Then how could she see me? And how do you know my name?" Gerard does not doubt that he’s dead, but more and more he’s beginning to suspect this is some kind of cosmic joke.

"One: she can see you because you're not a ghost anymore. And two: contrary to whatever you might think, I don’t go around randomly picking up the recently deceased. I was expecting you." He holds up a file with Gerard’s name on it, lets Gerard look at it long enough that he starts to wonder just how much information he could have amassed in twenty-six years of life that would be worth putting in a file, and then puts it back in his bag.

"So I'm me again?" Gerard thinks that was a pretty quick transition from ghost to…whatever it is he is now; he didn't even feel it or anything. For a second, he's elated. He can go home, he can tell Mikey he's okay - maybe leave out the getting hit by a bus part - and apologize.

"You're human again," the guy stresses. "And yeah, you're still you, but. You won't look like you anymore to other people."

Gerard reaches up to feel his face, trying to feel any distinguishable new features. "Wait, why? I don't want to look like somebody else."

The guy gives him a long, even look. "You won’t look different to yourself, or any of us. But how do you think it would go over if you ran into someone that had just been at your funeral and you still looked like you?"

"Not good, I guess. But how am I supposed to talk to my family like this? They won't believe it's me, they'll just think I'm some crazy person-"

"You're not going to talk to your family. That's over and done with, Gerard. They'll grieve and they'll move on, and you need to do the same thing." The guy dives into his paperwork, not giving Gerard another look.

"Now wait. I have to talk to my family. I have to talk to my family, I have another chance, you can't just bring me back from the dead and tell me I can't talk to my family."

"I didn't bring you back from the dead. You are still dead. Drink your coffee."

Gerard drops it, but only because it doesn’t really matter what this dude or any other dude’s got to say about it, he’s going to see his family at some point.

The waitress slides his coffee across the table to him and sets the guy's food out of the way of his paperwork. Gerard wraps his hands around the warm mug, oddly glad to see that his nails are still bitten down to the quick, that there's still a callous on his middle finger from his drawing pencils.

"So what now?" Gerard asks, voice muffled by the lip of his coffee mug, and much smaller and quieter than he remembers.

"Now you be quiet so I can get some work done while we wait for the rest of the crew."

Gerard isn't sure, but pissing off the boss of the grim reapers doesn't seem like the brightest of ideas (and he has had more than his fair share of dumb ones), so he tries to get himself settled in. But between the coffee and the dying, Gerard can’t stop fidgeting. He taps his fingers on the table, he shreds his napkin into confetti, he taps his fork against the side of his coffee cup to the beat of “Hey Mickey.” It's not even five minutes before the guy is looking at him, mouth pursed and eyebrows drawn together.

"Can you sit still?"

Gerard sits absolutely still for about five seconds, and then bounces his feet restlessly. The guy narrows his eyes.

"What! I'm sorry okay, I don’t have any paperwork to keep me busy. And you know, by the way, for the record, dying's kind of a big deal, and you haven't told me shit. I think I deserve to know what's going on."

The guy sets his paperwork aside with deliberate delicacy, pulls his plate of food to him, and sighs. "Demanding. Great. Just what I need because I don't already have my hands full with the crew I've got." He seems to be talking to himself, so Gerard stays out of it. Finally, the guy looks up at him. "I'm Brian. I'm - not your boss, but for better lack of a word, I'm your boss." Gerard is no less confused than he was. "It works like this: when most people die, they cross over."

Gerard leans forward, elbows on the table, and manages to shake it enough that his coffee sloshes over the lip of his mug and splatters Brian's paperwork. Brian looks at him like he's a dog that just did something disgusting on the floor, but mops it up as best he can.

"Cross over? Like to heaven?"

Brian looks at him like he’s slow. “How would I know? I haven’t crossed over. As evidenced by my sitting right here in front of you.”

Gerard thinks this guy is overreacting a little to a simple question. Like Gerard knows anything about how any of this works, geez. “Isn’t there like, a handbook or something? Like in Beetlejuice? A Handbook for the Recently Deceased or a case worker or someone I can ask questions?”

“I’m the closest thing you’re going to get to a case worker, buddy, and no, there is no handbook. This whole thing, the whole reaper thing? Works like a business. You’ve got your upper management who know everything, your middle management who know a lot less, and your grunts who know what they need to know.”

Gerard taps at his coffee mug. “I’m a grunt in that scenario, right?”

Brian sighs, confirming, “You’re a grunt in that scenario. You’ll know as much as you need to know to get the job done, and when the job’s done, you’ll move on and figure out everything else.”

“And my job is reaping people?”

“Yes. And for future reference, be careful when noting that title on any paperwork. ‘Reaper’ lends itself to unfortunate typos.”

Gerard considers this, gets the gist of it, and giggles. Brian does not look amused. He looks so not amused, in fact, that Gerard squirms in his seat and manages to slosh his coffee again. Brian’s level of Not Amused ratchets up to Really Annoyed. Luckily, his focus is drawn away from Gerard’s fail when two guys show up next to the booth. One’s bigger, blond, scruffy, with really cool sunglasses shielding his eyes from the harsh florescent lights of the waffle house. The other one’s got a big head of curly hair, an Iron Maiden t-shirt, and a grin that makes Gerard feel a little bit better about being dead.

Brian looks up at them and gestures for them to take a seat. “Bob, Ray, glad to see you’re upholding tradition by arriving half an hour late. Wouldn’t want to break the streak.”

Bob and Ray slide in, and Gerard slides over to accommodate. The blond inclines his head toward Gerard and says, “New guy?”

Brian, looking for all the world like he’s got a litter of puppies to wrangle rather than three grown men, nods. “New guy.”

Gerard huffs indignantly. “I have a name, you know.”

The blond snorts and takes his sunglasses off, revealing startlingly bright blue eyes. “Yeah, Shoulda-Looked-Both-Ways-Guy.”

Gerard doesn’t dignify that with an answer. Yeah, okay, maybe he should have checked to make sure there were no motor vehicles bearing down on him before he stepped into the street, but he was having a life transformation. He was thinking deep thoughts about how to improve his life, and that bus should have yielded.

“Anyway,” Brian says, “Gerard, this is Bob Bryar,” he gestures to the snarky blond one, “and this is Ray Toro.” He gestures to the curly-haired one. “They’ve been at this a while, so, you know.” He makes a vague hand gesture. “Whatever they do, do the opposite.”

“Hey!” Ray sounds offended, but he grabs a menu and starts looking it over at the same time, so Gerard doesn’t think he’s all that upset. “We’re awesome reapers.”

Brian looks like he wants to refute that, but the waitress comes over to take Bob and Ray’s orders. “The usual?”

Bob nods and Ray spends awhile looking over the menu with a creased forehead. Bob finally grabs the menu out of his hands and smacks it back down on the table. “I don’t know why you even bother, Toro. You’re gonna have two eggs over-easy, extra bacon, and hash browns. In three years, you have never ordered anything else. Just admit you’re a creature of habit and save us all the suspense.”

Ray glares at him, and then turns to smile at the waitress. “Two eggs, over-easy, extra bacon, and hash browns. With cheese.” She jots it down, and Ray shoots Bob a smirk.

Bob puts his hands up, palms out. “Whoa, slow down there, cowboy. I don’t know if I can handle the new you. With cheese? That’s a pretty radical change. Next you’ll be sleeping on the other side of the bed.”

Ray flips him off, and Brian eats his pancakes with a long-suffering hunch to his shoulders.

Gerard keeps mostly to himself while they all eat, feeling the familiar nervous nausea of new kid. After breakfast, Brian pokes around in his paperwork until he comes up with a handful of Post-It notes. He hands a few to Ray, a few to Bob, and one to Gerard.

“Unfair,” Bob grumbles. “Back in my day, the new guy got the most jobs, not the least.”

“And we had to walk uphill both ways in the snow to reap a single soul, isn’t that right?” Ray says, grinning, and Bob grumbles some more.

“Lay off, guys,” Brian says, and Gerard’s suddenly grateful for him, despite the bluster. “He doesn’t look like he could operate a toaster today, I’m not gonna pile on the jobs.”

Maybe not that grateful.

Ray scoots out of the booth, Bob not far behind, and stretches. “Well, I guess it’s about that time.”

Gerard glances around the booth like there might be someone sitting there that he’s failed to notice this entire time. “Is this it? Just us three?”

Brian, Ray, and Bob share a look, and Gerard gets the distinct feeling he’s just stumbled into awkward territory.

“We’re just one unit out of a lot more, but we are short a couple people,” Brian admits. “You’re taking one spot, but we’re supposed to have a five-man crew. We should be getting a couple more in...eventually.”

Gerard tries not to get too excited about the fact that he won’t be the new guy anymore and then doesn’t feel excited at all when he realizes he’s already acting like this is normal. He’s dead, he died, his body is on the way to the morgue right this instant, and his mom’s going to be getting the call any minute. None of this is normal. His stomach churns, and he slides out of the booth quietly.

“Gerard,” Brian says, and there’s already a warning in his tone, “Stay away from your family.”

Gerard’s head jerks up, and he narrows his eyes at Brian. Reapers aren’t psychic, are they? If reapers get cool superpowers, Gerard would feel marginally better about being one, but so far he hasn’t discovered any new abilities. Besides the whole being dead and still walking around thing.

“Come on,” Ray says, nudging Bob forward. “Let’s go take some souls.”

Gerard follows behind them a little like a stray dog hoping to be noticed, and behind him, Brian mutters something that sounds like, “My life, so hard.”

--

The three of them stand outside the waffle house, late morning sun glaring down at them. Bob and Ray pull identical sets of sunglasses out of their pockets and slip them on in some kind of synchronized badassery competition. Gerard is left sunglasses-less and participating in the individual squinting challenge.

"So," Gerard says, shoving his hands in his pockets and staring across the street. He can just barely see the yellow police tape from the scene of his death from here. "What now?"

"Now we get our reap on," Bob says, and he says it with a such a straight face that Gerard thinks it must be some kind of pre-reap psych-up or something. Ray gives it a minute, and then laughs, high-pitched and reedy, clapping Gerard on the back.

"Now you do your job."

Gerard stares down at the little piece of yellow paper in his palm, the innocuous office supply with the ominous words scribbled across it. D. Sanders, 12:18 PM, 220 Riverwood Drive. Twelve-eighteen is a while away, and 220 Riverwood Drive is...Gerard has no fucking clue where 220 Riverwood Drive is. He's going to need a map.

Ray sighs and shakes his head, glancing at Bob before taking pity on Gerard and offering, "You can tag along with us for a while, if you want. Get a feel for the job."

Gerard cannot think of a single thing he wants to do less than tag along and watch people die, but his options are limited. He could go back in and see if Brian's feeling charitable, or he could walk around aimlessly until his appointment. The former seems suicidal even for a dead guy, and the latter seems kind of lonely. "Yeah, okay."

Bob has a beat up little hatchback that looks like something straight out of the seventies with its burnt orange paint job and rust-brown interior. "She's not much to look at," Bob says fondly, "But she's a beauty under the hood." Gerard can't vouch for her inner workings, but her backseat sucks. He sits with his shoulders hunched in toward his chest, boxed in on both sides with drum equipment and speakers, feet swimming in a sea of discarded fast food wrappers. Occasionally a box from the back will shift and poke him in the head.

"So, you um. You're a drummer?" Gerard offers weakly.

"Occasionally. When I find a band without one. I tech, sometimes. Brings in a little cash, pays the rent, you know." Bob takes a turn at an alarming rate of speed and a speaker slides onto Gerard's lap, a corner coming dangerously close to his balls.

"Oh, yeah, right. Rent." Gerard parrots the words back without really thinking about them, and then he's got the speaker back in place and his balls are no longer in immediate peril, and he realizes what he's talking about. "Rent, uh. So you guys rent an apartment or what?" He hadn't had much time to think about it, but of course he's going to need a place to stay. Reapers still slept, and it's not like he can take up residence in his old bedroom without raising a few questions. ”Hey, you don’t know me, except that I’m your dead son and I’m gonna chill out down here while I reap some souls, cool?”

Ray turns his head to answer, bracing himself against the dashboard like he has had way too much experience with Bob’s driving. "Yeah, we've got a place. We used to crash wherever was open, one of the benefits of knowing when someone wasn’t gonna be using it. Always an empty place available for a few days, at least."

Gerard’s a little uncomfortable with the idea of squatting in a dead person’s home, especially when you were directly involved with their death, but Bob and Ray have been around longer than he has, so he doesn’t say anything. He’s trying to work up the courage to ask if they need a third roomie when Bob cranks the wheel to the left and the car squeals around a corner, shaking a snare drum loose and sending an avalanche of drum equipment down on Gerard.

The car stops suddenly and the engine goes quiet, and while Gerard picks his way out of the mess, Bob says, “This is it.”

Ray ends up helping Gerard out, shoving most of the equipment to the side and dragging Gerard out bodily while Bob hovers around the edge of a lawn, looking fairly conspicuous.

When he’s finally out, Gerard frowns at Bob and turns to Ray. “What’s he doing?"

Ray shrugs, leaning against a tree. “Besides doing a terrible job of lurking? Trying to figure out how it’s gonna happen.” He shifts, nodding toward Bob, who’s trampling through a flower bed to get around the side of the house. “Sometimes you notice an exposed wire or a badly-hung ceiling fan, and you can figure out how it’s gonna happen. Bob usually goes for the unlikeliest scenarios, which is why I usually win the round.”

Gerard’s horrified. “You make a game out of how people are going to die?”

Ray shrugs again, but he doesn’t look apologetic. “We have to make our own fun in this business.”

They stand around like that for a few more minutes, and then Bob comes back around the side of the house, walking stiffly and mouth in a thin line. Beside Gerard, Ray straightens up, suddenly tense, and says, “Bob?”

“It’s a fire,” Bob says, and his voice sounds so tight Gerard would say Bob’s scared, if Bob seemed like the type to get scared.

Ray relaxes a little, but he nods shortly and peers around the side of the house.

“Gerard,” he says, waving Gerard over, and Gerard shakes his head. Whatever’s over there that freaked Bob out, Gerard’s pretty sure he can do without. “Gerard,” Ray says, a little more firmly. “It’s not gonna hurt you, just come here.”

Gerard slinks over, just close enough to look around the side of the house, and catches sight of it. There’s a shadow looming over the corner of the house that obscures it for a second, makes it look like nothing more than a trick of the light, but then the thing jumps up against the side of the house, baring its teeth at Gerard and digging its claws into the paneling.

It looks like something straight out of a nightmare, a deformed dog or something, moving like gravity doesn’t apply to it and leaving little wisps of smoke behind it. “Sometimes you don’t have to guess,” Ray says as they watch the thing claw at the gas pipe. “You see one of those around, it’s a good bet they’re facilitating a death.”

Gerard feels a sick sort of fascination with the creature, and he tries to memorize the shape of it, the horrific twist of its face so he can draw it later. “What is it?”

“A graveling,” Ray explains. “Fate’s little helpers.”

Gerard backs away, back into the bright sunlight the sidewalk spot offers, and nods. “They’re always around for it?”

Ray shrugs, coming over to stand next to him. “In our area, yeah. We cover accidental deaths, and they’re usually responsible for any accidents that kill someone. Sometimes they get in and out before we get there, though.” He nudges Bob with his elbow, nodding toward the car. “I got this one.”

Bob looks like he wants to argue, but there’s a sudden snap and hiss from the side of the house, and he just nods gratefully.

When he’s back in the car, Ray lowers his voice and says, “He has some issues with fire.”

Gerard doesn’t ask. Reaper etiquette probably says you don’t ask about a reaper’s death or they get to scythe you or something.

A few minutes later, a dark sedan pulls into the driveway and a family piles out. Gerard’s stomach sinks to his feet.

Ray doesn’t miss a beat. “Mr. and Mrs. Kline?” He strides up the driveway, smile on his face, and extends a hand to the man.

Mr. Kline looks a little confused, hefting his toddler daughter onto his hip and holding his hand out warily. “Yes?”

Ray takes the man’s hand and squeezes it firmly, and Gerard can just barely see a flicker of blue pass between them. It almost looks like static electricity, shimmering faintly before dissipating completely. Gerard’s suddenly reminded of the woman he helped before he died, the tiny shock he’d gotten when she’d touched him. He is slightly miffed that the one person he’d decided to help out in his quest to become a better person had repaid the favor by taking his soul. “Ray Toro, I just bought a house in the neighborhood, thought I’d make the rounds.” His grin is completely disarming, voice betraying no sign of the lie, and even Gerard finds himself strangely comforted by the façade.

“Oh, well, good to meet you,” Mr. Kline says, and Ray drops his hand to greet Mrs. Kline, sliding his palm against hers and taking her soul so smoothly Gerard doesn’t even see the shimmer this time.

“And this must be…” Ray leans down to press a hand against the shoulder of the boy, finger going up to his lips like he’s thinking hard.

“Sam!” the boy offers, grinning toothily, and Ray’s fingers drag against his shoulder as he straightens up to greet the last member of the family.

“And Michaela,” Mrs. Kline says, reaching in to brush her daughter’s hair behind her ear. Ray takes the girl’s pudgy hand and shakes it seriously, pulling a face.

“Pleasure to meet you, Michaela.” The girl hides her face in her father’s shoulder, and Ray grins. “Well, I’ve got a whole neighborhood of houses to inflict myself upon yet, so you folks have a good night.” He raises a hand in a half-wave, and the Klines say their goodbyes, trooping into the house.

Ray rejoins Gerard on the sidewalk, and Gerard gapes at him. “But.” Ray turns a serious gaze on him, and Gerard sputters. “But, they’re kids. You can’t just, I mean, fucking. Can’t you warn them? You know what’s gonna happen, just warn them for Christ’s sake!”

Ray puts his hands in his pockets and glances back at the house. “That’s not how it works.”

“Then how it works is fucked,” Gerard says, already headed toward the front door. If he was any closer, he would have gotten sliced neatly in two when the door exploded off its hinges, but as it is, he just gets knocked down and singed a little. He lays on the ground for a few seconds, staring up at the sky and wondering just who’s up there calling such shitty shots. He can hear murmuring off to the side, so he turns his head and catches the tail end of Ray showing the family how to cross over. When they’re gone, Ray comes over and grabs his arm, hauling him up and helping him toward the car.

“It’s not fun,” Ray says quietly. “It’s a shitty job. But this is the way it works.”

Gerard climbs into the backseat, not bothering to push anything out of his way or try to avoid crushing anything important. He stays quiet while they drive to Ray’s appointment, and he doesn’t say anything while Bob takes the reap, catching a teenage couple outside a diner and brushing up against them surreptitiously. He doesn’t say anything as they drive past the crumpled heap of metal a few miles down the road, ambulance siren wailing in the distance, and he doesn’t open his mouth again until they get to 220 Riverside Drive.

“I won’t do it,” he says, planting himself on a bench. As it turns out, 220 Riverside Drive is a park, mostly flowers and bike paths, near the middle of the city. “You can’t make me.” He’s being petulant and he knows it, but fuck. This is all kinds of fucked up and he wants no part of it.

Bob and Ray exchange a glance, and then Bob sits next to Gerard on the bench. “It gets easier.”

Gerard gapes at him. “Killing people gets easier. Oh, gee, thanks for the reassurance, that totally makes it okay, let’s get to it!”

Bob doesn’t look amused. He doesn’t even look sympathetic. “Man, cut the bullshit. You know it’s not like that. We don’t kill people. We show up in time to take their soul and let fate take its course. This is the natural order of things, and you going on strike or whatever isn’t going to change that.”

Gerard crosses his arms, staring at a bubbling fountain. “Maybe, but I don’t have to go along with it.”

“Yeah, you do,” Bob says, sounding exasperated. “If you want to get to the next stage, the other side, whatever the fuck you want to call it, you have to log your hours like the rest of us. Otherwise, welcome to a very long life of being dead.”

Gerard doesn’t give in, but he doesn’t argue, either. As much as he doesn’t want to do this, be this, he’s not sure he wants to hang around forever, either. As it stands, he has no one. No one that recognizes him and nobody that would believe him if he tried to explain it. Well, maybe Mikey would. But even Mikey will grow old and die eventually, and Gerard would be stuck on a planet without him. Living forever in that situation is a pretty good motivator to get reaping. When twelve-eighteen rolls around, he uncrinkles his Post-It and stares at the name.

“You might have to do a little guess and checking,” Ray says. “First initial doesn’t really give you a lot to go on, it could be male or female, but sometimes you get lucky and they introduce themselves.”

Gerard looks around the park, takes in every person there. The older lady feeding the birds looks kind of lonely, but nice, the shawl wrapped around her shoulders reminding Gerard of the crocheted couch cover at home. The businessman eating a late lunch at the edge of the fountain, using his lap to do paperwork while he absently eats a sandwich. The young mother pushing a stroller around the cobblestone path, talking quietly to her baby, the older man fixing the chain on his bike, the middle-aged woman reading a paperback under a tree. He doesn’t want to be the reason any of them die.

Ray peers over Gerard’s shoulder to read his Post-It, and then scans the park much more quickly than Gerard had.

“There,” he says confidently, pointing to the guy fixing his bike. Gerard stares at him for a minute, trying to see what Ray had seen, and finally zeroes in on the guy’s bag. It says David Sanders across the side in small letters.

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Bob says, clapping Gerard on the shoulder.

Gerard stands up and shuffles toward the guy, his stomach tightening with every step. He doesn’t want to do this. God, but he’d give just about anything not to do this. He’s getting deep into thought about how much he really doesn’t want to do this when the guy looks up at him, and Gerard realizes he’s been standing over him for a creepy amount of time, not saying anything.

“Can I help you?” the guy asks, and it sounds more like he’s saying, ”Can I help you get away from me any faster?”

“Uh,” Gerard says. His mind’s a complete blank. What’s he supposed to do, make conversation? “You um, you need any help with that bike?” Gerard knows fuck-all about bike repair, but hopefully the guy will say no and shake his hand for offering to help or something.

“No.” The guy does not shake his hand. Instead, he scoots a little further away and stares at Gerard.

“Oh, okay.” Gerard decides to try a page from Ray’s book. “I’m Gerard, by the way, it’s nice to meet you.” He sticks his hand out.

The guy looks as likely to shake his hand as eat his own shoe. “That’s nice. I have to get going.”

The guy stands up and is about to walk away and Gerard moves without thinking, touching the guy’s shoulder and dragging his soul out. It’s not a pleasant sensation, but it’s not terrible, either, just brief pins and needles in his fingertips and then a weird sort of thud, like landing from a jump. Gerard’s still considering this when he realizes his fingers are still on the guy’s shoulder, and the move he’d used to take his soul had basically been a stroke. He just stroked this guy’s shoulder. The guy looks as creeped out as Gerard would if some random dude just stroked him.

“Look, pal, I don’t swing that way. I’m flattered, but take off.”

Gerard gapes, and the guy’s already halfway down the path before he finally splutters, “What. No! I don’t, I didn’t, what?”

Gerard can hear Ray and Bob snickering behind him, and he turns around to level his best glare at them. While he’s busy not having much effect on them, there’s a sudden grating noise behind him like metal on stone, and someone nearby shouts in alarm.

Gerard turns back around to see David Sanders on the ground, his bike twisted around him at an odd angle, and his head gushing blood onto the pavement. At almost the same instant, he’s standing next to Gerard, scratching his head and staring over at his own body.

“So you weren’t hitting on me?”

Gerard feels his face heat up, and his shoulders hunch up. “No, I was not. Not that I have anything against older guys, I mean, you’re good-looking for an old guy, not that you’re super old or anything, you’re just older than me, and while I wouldn’t say I would never date an older guy, you don’t seem like the type that would date me, and I’m not really the type that chases people who don’t seem interested, you know? So I wasn’t hitting on you, but don’t take that as a personal offense or anything, I might totally have hit on you if you seemed into it-“

At that point, Gerard realizes that Mr. Sanders is quietly walking into a brilliant tunnel of light, ignoring everything Gerard’s saying. Bob comes up behind him, patting him on the shoulder. “Gonna have to shorten up that speech, they usually don’t stick around long.”

The tunnel of light closes, taking David Sanders with it, and Gerard feels a pang of overwhelming loss. That tunnel was what he should have seen when he woke up. He should have had light to walk into, someone waiting on the other end. Elena. He can’t even work up the motivation to tell Bob that he doesn’t plan on accidentally hitting on any of his other reaps and so will not have the need for the speech. Instead, he just nods and follows them back to the car.

--

Bob and Ray drop Gerard back off at the waffle house, mostly because he has nowhere else to go. He can’t go home, he can’t go to his friends’, he can’t go to work.

He stands outside for a while, just loitering, trying to figure out what to do next. The crime scene tape is gone from the accident scene, and he wanders over. There’s nothing left to show for his death except a pair of skid marks on the road. By now, his family’s got the news. He can’t - doesn’t want to - imagine what they’re going through. Not that he has any inflated sense of his own importance, but he knows it’s going to be hard. He can’t even comprehend what he’d do if something had happened to Mikey instead.

He wanders back past the waffle house, and for being alive, or undead, or whatever it is he is, he feels pretty ghostly. No one looks at him as they pass, and when he catches a glimpse of himself in a window, he’s startled. He still looks the same as ever - dark hair just this side of too-long, wide eyes in a pale face, tiny rows of teeth when he smiles grimly at himself. For some reason, he’d expected it to show. Like the first time he’d gotten laid - logically he knew there was no outward signs to prove he was no longer a virgin, but still, he’d expected people to notice something different. It feels wrong that being dead hasn’t changed him at all.

He wanders away, just keeps walking in no particular direction. He thinks he should probably be looking for a place to stay, or a job so he can pay for a place to stay, but he’s dead, what does it matter? It’s not like he’ll freeze to death outside, or starve to death without food. At least he doesn’t think so. Maybe he should check with Brian before testing that theory out.

He walks for a long time, long enough that the sun sets on his first day dead, and when he stops, he realizes he’s walked himself home.

He takes a deep breath and settles himself on the curb opposite his house, patting himself down. There’s a crumpled pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket, and he manages to find one that isn’t crushed and light it.

There are a couple cars in the driveway he doesn’t recognize. His aunt’s maybe, or his cousin’s. His mom’s car is there, parked half in the grass, and his dad’s car is there, too. The lights are on in every room in the house, casting shadows out over the lawn as people walk by the windows, and more than anything, Gerard just wants to go in. He wants to go in and hug his mom, he wants to hug Mikey, he wants to tell them he’s sorry for dying, for not telling them he loved them more often, for not doing more with his life while he had it. He wants to curl up in his own bed and watch stupid cheesy movies with his brother and get drunk and make mistakes he’ll have a chance to fix.

He gets through two cigarettes before the door opens, and even in the darkness, the light from the hallway behind him the only thing illuminating his frame, Gerard can tell it’s Mikey. His heart lurches in his chest, and all he can think is Miss you miss you miss you.

Mikey stands out on the lawn for a few minutes, arms crossed, staring down at the grass. After a while he looks up, scans the street, and notices Gerard.

Gerard almost stands up. Brian’s warning is there at the forefront of his mind, vaguely promising bad things if he tried to interact with his family, but it’s Mikey. It’s the kid he’s spent his whole life with, and the kid he really can’t imagine his life without.

He forces himself to stay where he’s at even when Mikey heads over, even when Mikey sits down next to him and drags his knees up toward his chest.

They sit in silence for a while, and then Mikey says, “My brother died today.”

Gerard’s whole body aches with the need to just reach over and hug him, to reassure him that things are okay. I’m still here, he wants to say. I love you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to die. “I’m really sorry.”

Mikey nods, slowly bobbing his head a few times like once he stops he’s not going to know what else to say. Finally he says, “That asshole.”

Gerard’s heart sinks, and it’s suddenly hard to take a breath. Whatever grudges they’d had, however many fights they’d had, Gerard couldn’t imagine that any of them were bad enough that they’d last through one of them dying. He’s grateful to be sitting here, trying to offer the smallest kind of condolences he can to his brother for his own death, but knowing Mikey’s still mad at him for whatever it was they’d fought about makes Gerard kind of want to get mowed down by another bus.

“That asshole,” Mikey says again, and he has his face turned away from Gerard, chin hooked on his shoulder. His voice is muffled. “He was gonna do really great things, and then he had to go and die.”

Gerard fumbles around with his cigarettes, blinking fast, and manages to light one before he can say something stupid. Mikey, I’m so sorry.

Finally Mikey sniffles and drags the sleeve of his shirt over his nose. “Did you know him?”

Gerard sucks his cigarette down to the filter and considers the question. “Not very well.”

Mikey stands up, arms wrapped around himself, and says, “I gotta get back inside. My mom…” He shakes his head. “See you around.”

Gerard waves him off even though Mikey’s already headed back to the house, and then he spends a few minutes pretending he’s not crying.

Eventually he gets up and walks away, and in comparison to that, taking souls suddenly doesn’t seem like it’ll be so hard.

--

Gerard spends the night wandering town, and by the time the sun comes up, he’s out of cigarettes, exhausted, and starting to wonder if it’s all been some bizarre dream. Maybe he just fell asleep on the train and dreamt his own death. Maybe he dreamt the waffle house and the park and his visit home.

He lets himself believe it for about an hour, pretending that he can go home whenever he wants and his family will just roll their eyes at him. It’s a hollow sort of comfort, but it’s comfort.

Eventually he’s too cold and tired and hungry to pretend he’d be out if he had any other choice, and even the hollow comfort dissipates. He’s really dead, and he really has no place to go.

So he goes to the waffle house.

It’s early, way earlier than when he’d followed Brian in yesterday, but Brian’s there anyway. Gerard slides into the booth across from him and drops his head onto the table with a solid thunk.

“Rough night?” Brian asks, scribbling something down on a notepad and not looking up.

“This whole business sucks,” Gerard says miserably. “Not only am I dead, but I have no money, no job, and no place to live. And no cigarettes,” he amends even more miserably.

Brian finally looks up, pen poised over his paper, and a flicker of sympathy passes over his face. He sets the pen down and digs into his pocket, producing a pack of cigarettes and handing them over. “Now you have cigarettes. And in case you forgot, you do actually have a job. It’s called being a reaper.”

“Right. And when do I get my first paycheck?”

Brian frowns. “There’s a lot of reapers, Gerard, and all of them have to make their own way. You need to find a place to live, because if you try to reap smelling like that, you won’t make it within ten feet of the soul before they run the other way.”

Gerard sniffs himself. Compared to some days, he’s practically fragrant. He hasn’t even been drinking, although not for lack of wanting. Mostly for lack of more than the two dollars he has in his wallet.

Brian orders breakfast and Gerard gives him his best ‘please feed me’ look, and Brian folds and lets Gerard order on his tab. They’re almost done when Bob and Ray stroll in.

“You look like death warmed over,” Bob says. Gerard groans.

“You’re hysterical.”

“Get used to it,” Brian mutters. “Thinks he’s a comedian, this guy.”

Bob and Ray slide in and start talking about the show Bob had teched the night before. Gerard finishes his breakfast and stretches, suddenly feeling the effects of a full belly and a night of no sleep after a pretty eventful day. His whole body feels heavy, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s half-leaning against Ray, eyes already slipping shut.

It’s a pleasant sort of feeling, and Gerard lets himself drift in and out while the guys talk, catching bits and pieces that don’t really fit together. Eventually, Ray shifts his shoulder gently and Gerard sits up, fighting back a yawn.

The waitress comes by, and Bob orders but Ray declines. At Bob’s arched eyebrow, he nods toward Gerard and shrugs. “He’s drooling on me. I’m gonna take him home and let him get cleaned up, sleep for a while.”

Bob doesn’t look overly-enthused about that idea, but he nods. Brian grabs his bag and holds up a finger.

“Before you go…” He pulls out a thin pile of Post-Its and hands them to Gerard. “Your appointments.”

Gerard still has the niggling feeling he should be trying harder to rebel against this whole business, but he’s so exhausted it’s all he can do to reach out and grab the papers. He’ll rail against the system later.

Ray slides out of the booth and pulls Gerard out with him, letting Gerard hold onto his arm as he stumbles around trying to get his balance.

“Hey, tha-“ Gerard yawns, so wide his jaw cracks, and follows Ray out to the car. “…nks.”

Ray shrugs again. “The first few weeks are tough, I still remember that.” He stops at the driver’s side door, pointing over the roof of the car. “You can stay a few days, but you gotta look for your own place.”

Gerard nods sleepily and climbs in, already dozing off by the time Ray starts the engine.

Ray nudges him awake when they arrive at the apartment building, and Gerard stumbles after him when he leads the way up.

The door’s not even closed before Gerard’s dropping onto the sofa, tucking a decorative pillow under his head and pulling his knees up. He’s so tired he can barely think straight, and he’s looking forward to sleeping, but it’s kind of nice being half-awake, too tired to think about how confused he is, or how much he misses his mom, or how he’s, you know, dead.

Ray throws a blanket over him and pulls the shade, and in the dim light of the room, Gerard can almost pretend he’s home.

He hears the door click shut as Ray leaves, and then he falls into a hard, dreamless sleep.

--

It’s late afternoon by the time he wakes up, and for a split second, Gerard’s irritated that Mikey left the shades open again. It’s Gerard’s room, and if he wants to wallow in darkness, that’s his right, and Mikey should stop-

It hits him then, the unfamiliar couch he’s sleeping on and the smell of a different brand of laundry detergent on the blanket covering him and the sounds of people moving around him that aren’t his family.

He sits up, pulls the blanket around him, and curls up in the corner of the couch. An overwhelming sense of hopelessness settles over him, and he tucks his face into his knees. What’s he supposed to do now? Well, he knows what he’s supposed to do, but it doesn’t really mesh with what he wants to do.

“Coffee?” Ray comes up behind the couch and leans over, holding a steaming mug out to him.

Gerard accepts it gratefully and sips at the scalding coffee. “Thanks.”

Ray comes around and sits down next to him, letting his legs sprawl and resting his hands on his thighs. “You had an appointment earlier, but Bob took it. He said you looked too cute sleeping to wake up.”

Bob shouts from the kitchen, “I did not, Toro, you dirty liar. I said he looked like shit and needed the beauty sleep.”

Ray laughs, and Gerard forces a smile. “Thanks. I crashed pretty hard.”

“No big deal. You need a shower or something? I think I’ve got some clothes that’ll fit, if you want ‘em.”

Gerard doesn’t really want to shower, he’s feeling pretty comfortable in his own filth, but he supposes it’s impolite to stink up your host’s couch. He nods and gets up, setting the coffee aside. “Sure.”

Ray shows him to the bathroom and leaves to find clothes. Gerard slowly strips down, and he can’t resist checking his body for…tire marks or something, he doesn’t know. But his body’s the same as it ever was - pale, a little chubbier than he’d like, no distinguishing marks beside the few childhood scars he’d had before.

The hot water feels good on his tense shoulders, and he just stands under the spray for a long time before Ray knocks and peeks his head in and puts some towels and clothes on the counter, grabbing Gerard’s dirty clothes on his way out.

Eventually, Gerard starts washing up, and the smell of the shampoo almost makes him cry. It’s not his shampoo, it’s not Mikey’s top-shelf professional stuff, it’s not his Mom’s flowery stuff, it’s just some random generic shampoo that belongs to the people he’s crashing with because he has nowhere else to go.

Gerard scrambles to finish and throws a towel around himself. He tracks water all the way out to the living room, and he nearly slips in his own puddle. Ray looks at him curiously.

“Don’t.” Gerard suddenly realizes he’s naked from the waist up, and he self-consciously puts an arm over his chest. “Um, I uh, I’ll do my own laundry.”

Ray nods slowly. “Okay…your clothes are in the hamper.” He points across the room. Gerard grabs his clothes out, clutching them to his chest. Ray’s still looking at him weird, but Gerard just heads to the bathroom to get dressed. He doesn’t plan on wearing his clothes, but he doesn’t plan on washing them, either - his clothes may smell bad, but there’s the underlying scent of his mom’s detergent, and Mikey’s body spray, and home. He can’t lose the last trace of it he has left.

Ray’s clothes are a little long, slightly tight around the middle, but they’ll work. He curls up on the couch again, watching disinterestedly as Ray flips through the channels.

“You’re gonna have to get some new clothes,” Ray says.

Gerard has actually thought of that, but he’s kind of strapped for cash. “I don’t have any money.”

Ray mutes the TV and turns toward him. “Did Brian tell you anything about how we make money?”

Gerard shrugs. “He said I have to get a job.”

Ray laughs. “He’s an idealist.”

Bob snorts.

“Well, how else do I make money?” Gerard asks, rubbing his palms over his knees anxiously.

“Steal,” Bob says bluntly.

Gerard narrows his eyes. “Like…rob a bank? I don’t think I…I mean, I don’t even have a gun-“

Bob breaks down laughing, his whole face going red, and Gerard frowns at him. Well, what does Bob expect? Not everyone has a gun, Gerard wouldn’t even know where to get one, especially now that he has no identification-

Ray’s valiantly trying not to laugh as he says, “No, Gerard, you don’t need to rob a bank. Just take a few bucks here and there from your reaps. They’re not going to need it.”

Gerard stares at him. “Are you serious?”

Ray nods. “It’s that or get a job.”

Gerard doesn’t like either of those options. He’s about to ask for a third when Ray glances at his watch and says, “Oh, shit, you have an appointment.”

Gerard grabs his stack of Post-Its from the table and flips through them. Sure enough, M. Wu is scheduled to die in about fifteen minutes.

“Better get going,” Bob says, popping a peanut into his mouth and un-muting the TV.

Gerard grabs his shoes and tries to remember that every soul is a step closer to being done with this whole thing.

part 2
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